XBox Xtravaganza: The Basics

By Jonathan Berohn

If you read my previous review: "XBox: The Best in Console Gaming," you already know my initial reaction to the XBox. In short, it's a great machine, offering some great games at a pretty good price.  Now that Christmas has come and gone, and my son, daughter, and I have had some time fore some extensive-er-testing...purely in the name of gaining insight and advice for my loyal readers, of course.I'm ready to really give you low down (and largely the highlights) of the XBox and a few of its games.

Controllers

As I mentioned before, the first thing you need to do is buy at least one extra controller.  If you like gadgets, there's wireless available, but the standard XBox controllers come with nice long cables so you can actually sit in a chair and play.  There are also extension cables available. If tripping over cables is a problem in your house (as it is in mine-it's the kids-really), the wireless are cool, but otherwise unnecessary.  One thing you can hold off on is the controller memory card.  Unless you want to be able to take your stats to a friend's house, the built-in memory on the XBox hard drive is more than enough.  I would also hold off on the DVD remote unless you are pressed for space around your TV.  For the $30 it costs, you can pick up a cheap DVD player, and really, how often are you going to want to watch DVDs when you could be playing XBox?

Games

The current crop of XBoxes comes with 2 free games: EA Sports NCAA Football 2005 and XSN Sports Topspin.  While both games are fun to play in their own way, it's easy to see why they are throw-ins.  In NCAA 2005, for example, EA Sports deliberately programmed players to make more mistakes than their professional counterparts in EA's Madden 2005.  Unfortunately, as a friend of mine noted, that also serves to decrease the fun.  I enjoyed being able to trot out the Harvard Crimson to do battle with evil Yale (I enjoyed beating them 7-0 even more) but the dropped passes, penalties, and fumbles got old very fast.  As for Topspin, it's basically new and improved pong.  For the blast from the past effect alone that gives it some upside, but it just gets boring pretty quickly.  There's a reason video games quickly evolved from pong.  That said, both of these games are fun as introductions to the XBox, but to get the most out of it, you certainly want to buy some additional games post haste.

Online

I haven't tried XBox live yet, so I can't really comment at this point. I'll be sure to report back as soon as I've taken the plunge.